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Monday, March 27, 2017

Although there has been no shortage of depressing news with regards to politics in 2017, the release of the modern pharaoh Hosni Mubarak on March 13 is some of the worst, in my view. Al Ahram put it better than I could have, noting

"The former autocrat ruled Egypt from 1981 until a popular uprising ousted him on 11 February 2011."

In a somewhat incredulous statement, Mubarak's lawyer Farid al Deeb claims that his client owns no money or property outside of Egypt, and is now borrowing American President Donald Trump's phrase of "false news" in defense of his client. Meanwhile, amidst these denials, a Swiss bank states that they have frozen close to 500 million in Egyptian assets linked to the Mubarak family.

In 2012, relatively free elections ushered into power the
Islamist leader, Mohammed Morsi’s administration, which was short lived as his
leadership was deposed by General Abdel Fattah El-Sisi
in 2013. Since then, the Sisi administration has drafted draconian laws that prevented
illegal protests, which was a strategic law to prevent any dissenting views
hence increased the number of political
arrests. The police made more recent arrests
of Muslim Brotherhood militia personnel who made several attacks on the police
and army in Cairo through exchange of fire leading to the death of a civilian. In good news, the Egyptian Supreme Court has declared portions of the controversial protest law unconstitutional.

The
New York Times piece on the prominent youth leader (Ahmed
Maher) during the 2011 uprising, explains how Egyptian judges used
draconian laws to find him guilty of illegal demonstration and ‘thuggery.' Maher was sentenced to three years in the Tora
Prison, which is a
notorious complex housing political prisoners and criminals. Maher is still monitored
closely by the police because the government views his influence over social
media as "a terroristic threat". As a result, he spends 12 out of 24 hours of each day with the
police to ensure that he is not inciting any dissenting views to topple the new
administration as well.

Indeed, the US provided $6.5 billion in military assistance to Cairo between 2011 and 2015.As a
result, President Trump is expected to visit Egypt from April 1 to 4 as a
follow-up of their 23 January 2017 phone conversation to discuss ways to
increase bi-lateral relations. Let's hope they do not trade notes on how to crush dissent . . . .